Texas Judge accused of child abuse

Hillary Adams says that until last week, only a couple of close friends knew about the savage beating she received seven years ago from her father, a Texas judge who handles child abuse cases.

Now the beating is on display to the world on YouTube thanks to a secret video she made, and her father, Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams, is the subject of a police investigation.

Hillary Adams, 23, says the outpouring of support and encouragement she’s received since posting the 2004 video online last week is tempered by the sadness that it’s her father lashing her 17 times with a belt and threatening to beat her "into submission." The 8-minute video had been watched nearly 2 million times by Thursday morning.

"I’m experiencing some regret because I just pulled the covers off my own father’s misbehavior after so many people thought he was such a good person. … But so many people are also telling me I did the right thing," she told The Associated Press outside her mother’s home in the Gulf Coast town of Portland, near Corpus Christi.

"He’s supposed to be a judge who exercises fit judgment," she said."I cannot stress enough — I cannot repeat myself enough, that he just needs help."

And she said the videoed attack was not a one-off. "It did happen regularly for a period of time," she told NBC’s "Today" show on Thursday.